"What's your name? I've told you mine now I want yours!" Aster said angrily
"I don't need a name anymore" the young man looked to the sunset "but for now you can call me Xenos"
"That's a strange name."
"So is yours, Aster "
Seemingly angered once again by his actions, Aster stepped away with her Swablu following closely.
"Hey! Wait! Where are you going?" Xenos screamed after Aster as he is following her.
"You apparently don't want my company so I'll just return to my family."
"Alright, Alright." Xenos sighed "You can accompany me but this stays just between us. I don't want even more trouble."
Aster smiled.
"That wasn't so bad, was it now?" Aster said with the smug smile still on her face."
"What did I just agreed on?" Xenos thought to himself as he follows Aster.
"My mother normally doesn't allow me to go too far away from the meteor falls but now that you are following me I can go wherever I want right?"
Xenos nodded as if he was forced.
"Good. Then I want to see this city not far from here. Rustboro City wasn't it?"
Xenos looked concerned at Aster "I don't enjoy cities too much. I rather get back to my research and…"
He stopped talking as he saw in Aster's face that her temper was rising once again.
"And I guess we can make a quick visit, just make it quick. I have important things to get to"
As their conversation went on, they quickly reached the coast of the island.
"Come on, we'll use my Pokemon to get near Rustboro City. Your Swablu can't carry us both."
Aster silently agreed with him and told her Swablu to follow closely.
Xenos threw a Pokeball in the water, revealing a Relicanth. He quickly jumped on his back and helped Aster get on the ancient Pokemon.
The ride on Relicanth was unusually silent and Xenos feared that Aster's seemingly aggressive temper would show once again but this time she just looked at the sea as they could already see Rustboro City.
After a short walk they finally entered the city.
Aster was amazed at the sight of the building of the Devon Corporation. Devon rose to a big company in the recent years since the discovery of a strange power which fuels some of their machines.
Xenos was seemingly impatient and wanted to get out of this city as soon as possible.
"So what do you think we leave this city and look around in the nearby area?"
Aster, still eager to discover new locations, happily agreed.
As they go through the grass on route 116 Xenos had some doubts about Aster.
"What is it about this draconid girl? I'm completely at her mercy. On the bright side she forces me to finally get out of my research which I see as sort of … refreshing?" Xenos quickly moved his attention to Aster as she was running around looking at everything.
"Look Aster. Can you see these machines over there? Devon is building a big tunnel which will at first connect Rustboro City and Verdanturf Town but at a later stage will go through the whole mountain, connecting many of the cities together."
"But what about the Pokemon that live in this ''tunnel'', all these machines destroying their home must scare them."
Xenos never thought about this possibility and so did the workers tasked with building the tunnel.
The duo approached a man who was seemingly in charge of the project.
"Hey you two, no one's allowed in the tunnel. We are still drilling and the walls are extremely unstable. One wrong step and you are all buried alive in that thing."
The man with a rather bulky appearance kept on talking about project, completely ignoring Aster as she easily goes right by him.
"Also the Whismur in this cave are extremely aggressive. The Drills combined with these beasts could make the whole tunnel collapse. I couldn't care less about them but if someone gets hurt the head of Devon will kill me if he finds out."
"Thank you for the explanation. I guess. Alright Aster, let's get you back to…. "
Xenos did not pay attention and Aster was already in the tunnel, looking around.
"Aster?"
The worker noted her absence too and tells the workers to shut down the drills.
"Sorry Boss, we just started them. We are currently drilling a new path, if we stop now we could risk a rock slide"
"I don't care. Stop the drills! We can't allow a…."
Suddenly the situation was interrupted by a loud noise.
The noise was so loud and there was no one near the site who couldn't take notice.
"BOSS, THE NEW PATH COLLAPSED"
These were the words no one wanted to hear.
"Damn, we probably lost all our drills. This will cost us. By the way, boy wasn't there a young…."
Before the foreman could end his sentence, Xenos was already running inside the almost completely collapsed tunnel.
"Aster?"
"Aster is you here?"
The tunnel was almost completely destroyed. The noise the Whismur created combined with the drills was too much for the mountain. Other than the path to Verdanturf, all other paths were destroyed.
At this moment Xenos found Aster's Swablu standing before a collapsed entrance.
He didn't need to look at the face of her Pokemon to expect the worse.
Xenos just kept staring on the pile of rocks which was a long hallway before, speechless he left the Swablu where it was and left the Tunnel, not looking back.
In his apparent grieve he ignored all the workers who wanted to question him about the accident.
Xenos destinations were the meteor falls. He didn't wanted to enter neither did he wanted to tell the draconid about their lost. He just stood at the entrance, listening to the noise of the waterfalls inside the cave.
He felt a slight tap on his leg.
With a mix of surprise and happiness on his face he turned around expecting the cheerful face and the red eyes he learned to know in the past hours.
"Aster! I thought you…."
A Whismur, which apparently followed him all the way here, looked at him. Almost like it wanted to comfort him.
"Hey little girl, what are you doing here?"
A lonely tear was going down his face.
"I'll call you Aster"